The Unperfect Game

This is just a quick post. It relates to my first post on this blog about using instant replay to verify, and in some cases, replace umpires and referees.

Armando Galarraga just pitched a perfect game. 27 up and 27 down. Except that an umpire robbed him of it by calling the 27th batter safe at first when that batter, according to all the replay angles, was clearly out. What a crock of shit!

I watched the game live and saw it all go down in real time. I was a baseball player in my younger years, and even did some umpire work. I know that the speed of the game and even the pop-pop of the play at first can be hard to call. But, this wasn't hard. The ump just blew it. Period.

I don't want to sound like a conspiracy nut, or anything like that. But, as I watched the coaches and players of the Tigers arguing the call, I thought I saw a look on the face of the umpire that said,"I am the law. I am never wrong. You have no right to question me."

Of course, all of America is going to question him. And, anyone who watches the replays will conclude that he flat blew it. He did.

Naturally, many of those who comment will question the umpire's integrity. There will inevitably be questions about his stake in the outcome, or, much worse, his own ego demanding that he break up what would be only the 21st perfect game in the entire history of major league baseball, or a span of more than 100 years. The question many will ask is did he think he was more important than history in the making, and, even if it meant that he had to make a bad call, at least he would get the attention and not some hot shot young pitcher. "Take that youngster! You think you're so all that, well now you know differently."

The worst part of the whole ordeal is that if baseball had a replay system in place, they could have corrected this terrible, back asswards, ego induced call.

Still, I have to feel sorry, a little bit, for the umpire. He is going to go down into baseball history as the ump who blew the perfect game. I thought I heard that he had been doing umpiring in the majors for 20 years. Well, guess what, no one is going to remember him for the 20 years he got the calls right, if he ever did. They are going to remember him as the guy who got the one call that made history wrong.

If the attitude I thought I saw on his face afterward is correct, he deserves all the villification he's going to get. Umpires are like judges. Once you put them above everyone else, and make their calls final, they pretty much better be perfect, or else.